


Workin' So Hard

by r_lee



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Dark, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Memory Alteration, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:20:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even at the best of times, absorbing someone else's psyche isn't easy. It isn't pleasant. It isn't  fun. When it happens at the worst of times... well, what's a girl to expect?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workin' So Hard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raynidreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/gifts).



_girl there's a better life for me and you_

In the back of her thoughts, the phrase repeats. She doesn't know where it comes from. All she knows is that her name is... her name is... She presses the heels of her hands against her temples. The gloves covering them are good, make it so her hands don't slip. The pressure feels right, and she thinks her head might just explode if she lets go. Huddled in a corner of the alley, she takes deep breaths, hoping to keep the thump-thump-thump of the runaway heart in her chest down to a dull roar. What she really wants is to keep pressing her hands harder and harder, enough to shatter her skull. Then these thoughts fighting to escape can be released and she'll be free.

Free from what, though? 

_You threw her off a bridge. Not just any bridge, the god-damn Golden Gate Bridge. Won't throw_ me _off no god-damn bridge no no no you freak remember we had a baby conceived someplace far away not by choice but still my baby my baby, where did — we never had a god-damn baby yes we did yes we did how can you forget?_

She touches her stomach, tests it for firmness, cautiously leaves that hand where it is. Her head pounds — no mercy. How can she remember having a baby and remember _not_ having a baby? How can she remember looking down at a different set of hands as her own, feel the push and agony of childbirth when she knows knows knows that never happened? How can her own body be so young and firm and undisturbed when she has decades' worth of memories fighting to escape, fighting to leak out through her eyes her ears her nose her mouth every pore on her face the very tips of her fingers? 

"Like bein' in a nightmare," she tells the gritty darkness of the empty street. She's not afraid. One thing that's never in doubt is that she can take care of herself. Words like _explosion_ and _Kree_ and names like Carol and Anna Marie and Marcus and Michael and Cody and Mystique — Mystique in two voices, one comforting, one horrified — fight for dominance and she can't doesn't won't shouldn't can't can't can't acknowledge. Can't do it, can't make sense of any of it, kiss once you're in a coma for life, kiss kiss kiss you're dead, honey, dead.

_Touch, baby, touch, you want to know the world you do it through touch peel off those gloves and live and take life no baby of yours could've survived his mama's touch, you freak, you mutant, you rogue killer. That's your destiny, there's no mystique to it, you touch you kill you kiss you kill you love you kill you kill you—_

"Stop."

The thoughts halt, freeze in their tracks just long enough for an old trick to come to the rescue. Before the name Carol Danvers comes sniffing back like some ancient hound-dog looking for entry, before the name Anna Marie settles comfortably into the leaky crevices of her brain. The old trick slowly shuffles in, flooding her thoughts with music. That's something she knows, something she can concentrate on: a song from a long time ago. From when she was a different girl, a younger girl, an innocent—

_In this dirty old part of the city_  
 _Where the sun refuse to shine_  
 _People tell me there ain't no use in tryin'_

"There's always use in tryin'." She gets to her feet using the bricks on the wall as leverage, tugs the long dirty trench coat around the skin-tight suit she's wearing. 

_Now my girl you're so young and pretty_  
 _And one thing I know is true_  
 _You'll be dead before your time is due_

"I will." No matter what else vies for dominance in that sorry excuse she's got for a brain, she knows she'll be dead soon, if she's not already dead. She is. She might be. _Kree Carol Carol Carol it's been too long I touched you too long no no, no no don't want you get out of here, get out of my head, get out of my oh God I threw her off the bridge off the Golden Gate Bridge—_

Her hands go back to her temples, rubbing insistent circles that do nothing. Power she's never known before known for so long can't control surges through her until her hands fall to her side. She's exhausted. She's on the rush of her life.

_No Daddy in bed and tired, we don't need that, neither of us needs that, been enough tired, been enough death and dyin' for a while. We been workin' so hard, Anna Marie, you murderous rogue, you rogue, you..._

Rogue. Her name is Rogue.  
Danvers. Her name is Carol Danvers.  
Anna Marie, her name is—

_We gotta get out of this place_  
 _If its the last thing we ever do_  
 _We gotta get out of this place_  
 _'Cause girl, there's a better life for me and you_

"Come on, Carol," she says, panting against unseen enemies from so many peoples' lifetimes it's a wonder she remembers how to walk and breathe at all. Figures pop up and figures disappear and she doesn't know which ones are hers and which ones belong to other people, can't tell the difference, guesses it doesn't even matter. They're all there in her brain, all right there for her to remember as plain as day. Adoptees, just like her or just like part of her.

She's gotta get out of this place.

"You an' me an' Anna Marie, we're goin'. Where, I don't know but why, that I do." She buttons her long coat, pulls her hair out from the collar, and reflexively buries her hands in her pockets. It's okay to bump shoulders with people, but that's about it. That much is something she knows by heart _my heart my heart how could anyone withstand the pain so much so unfair so god-damn unfair I never asked for—_

"And as soon as I remember the why of it, I'll sure let you know, Sugar." She flashes a grim smile at the first person she passes by, but it's both vacant and too full, too full of everything, and that stranger and the next one and the one after that weave wide berths around her. It's just as well. She's done enough damage for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always figured that anyone who could absorb another person's thoughts and memories through physical contact had to be walking a fine line at the best of times, emotionally and mentally speaking. When Rogue absorbed all of Ms. Marvel's powers, it toppled her over her precarious edge. This is set after that happened, but before she left to join the X-Men.


End file.
